Jay Harvey Upstage

  Brad Hughley, St. Paul's organist and director of music. One of the revelatory expressions of faith in the New Testament proclaims the prophetic joy of a blind man in his encounter with the baby Jesus. This provided the theme of a concert at St. Paul's Episcopal Church Sunday afternoon focused on two cantatas by J.S. Bach, presented by St. Paul's Music.  The concert title of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra 's program, "Incomprehensible Light," translates a German phrase from a duet in the more elaborate of them, "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin" (BWV 125). In Luke's gospel,  Simeon testifies to his readiness to die  as the promise of salvation includes the clarified eyesight that his earthly life has thus far denied him. The opening chorus of BWV 125 traces Simeon's brief hymn of praise. The performing forces of the IBO orchestra, five women from St. Paul's Choir, and three male soloists were under the direction of Brad Hughley. T...

Seth Holly lets wife and residents know the way things should be. The complex verbal music and dark urban rhapsodies of August Wilson carry a variety of appeal to theater companies that can draw upon African-American talent as well as educate and entertain audiences across the racial spectrum, provoking their sense of wonder and highlighting historical truth. Summed up in the ten plays of the Pittsburgh Cycle, the native son's placing each work in a decade of the 20th century gave an evolving focus to his art, as well as a location he knew intimately: the Steel City's Hill District.  Indiana Repertory Theatre opened a new production of "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" this week, to be shared next month with Syracuse Stage. Along with the Phoenix Theatre, the IRT has a long history with August Wilson shows. In Friday's  performance, the strengths and challenges of Wilson's style — verbally flamboyant and thematically spread over a wide swath of Black American...

Mihaela Martin displayed her sustained mastery.   After a late-night arrival as the monumental winter storm hit the city , Mihaela Martin sounded fully up to the task of recalling another monument — her gold-medal victory in the initial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis — with a fresh exhibition of her winning ways in recital Tuesday at the Indiana History Center . I heard it on livestream, an access taken advantage of by many IVCI patrons, according to the organization's executive director, Glen Kwok. Her performance, ably supported by Chih-Yi Chen at the piano, glowed with the stylistic romanticism of the competition's founder, Josef Gingold.                                                                                      The short and the subs...

 With the musical warmth making the Hilbert Circle Theatre cozy and welcoming, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra patrons at Friday's first concert of the weekend could shrug off the frigid weather they had just escaped from temporarily. The contrast stirred memories of one of Robert Frost's most famous poems, "Fire and Ice." Courtney Lewis worked this week with the ISO.  The New England poet's lines pose the eventual triumph of both elements on equal terms, with fire being linked to desire, ice to hate. Without stretching that metaphorical breadth to the news from the Twin Cities (it's hard to resist entirely), there's a plausible application to the two works on the program, their significance, and how they were played under the skillful baton of guest conductor Courtney Lewis . Hate as a force lies behind the difficult attractiveness of Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" Symphony, op. 58. Inspired by a Lord Byron poem well-known in the early 19th century...

Violinist Marleen Wester and violist Marie-Louise de Jong predominate in this group portrait.  John Failey's impeccable stewardship of the Ensemble Music Society includes his cultivated acquaintance with chamber-music groups online. It culminates repeatedly whenever he is able to schedule a visit here by an ensemble, whether a return engagement or a local debut. Wednesday night was a sterling example of the latter sort of husbandry. The Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, with its alluring representation online, became eligible for inclusion on the EMS schedule when it acquired North American representation by Maestro Arts .  So a large audience gathered at the Indiana History Center to become acquainted with the far-sighted Dutch string quartet in a program of Schubert, Shostakovich, and Bushra El-Turk, a contemporary British composer of Lebanese extraction. "The music we play is never old or new, but always relevant and present," the group proclaims on its website. El-Turk's...

Friday night was the first opportunity I've taken to see and hear Rob Dixon again revisit John Coltrane's epic suite, "A Love Supreme." Of all the recorded landmarks in the saxophonist's prematurely ended career, "A Love Supreme" is the most ambitious and the top seller. Like many saxophonists since Coltrane's time (1926-1967), Dixon has built his apprehension of the music on the master's example of stamina and technical knowledge. The suite's triumph always carries the surprising element of being a popular long-form composition in a musical genre familiar for more compact pieces. But Coltrane was famous for going long in his solos, extending a given form spontaneously. When he was a member of Miles Davis' group in the 1950s, he gently complained that he didn't know how to end his solos. The trumpeter-bandleader said something like, "You take the horn out of your mouth, John." Part of what makes the four-movement suite signi...